Looking Back...One can only say so much

My comments from today follow the article.
--------------

Haitian Hearts Still Beats Strong

February 6, 2002

ELAINE HOPKINS


Haitian Hearts still beats strong -- Despite losing his job, Dr. Carroll still helps sick children get treatment

PEORIA - After four weeks in Haiti, Dr. John Carroll arrived back in Peoria on Tuesday night accompanied by six children and an adult, all needing medical care.

''All will be big-time challenges to Peoria's medical community,'' Carroll said. ''They are all surgical cases. These kids will get the care they need; I know they will.''

About 50 friends and supporters met Carroll and the Haitians at Greater Peoria Regional Airport. The Haitians will stay with host families while undergoing medical treatment.

Carroll, 48, of Peoria, is a founder of Haitian Hearts, a charity that brings children with life-threatening illnesses to Peoria and elsewhere in the United States for treatment they otherwise could not receive. He has won awards and visibility for his work with the Haitians.

A week before Christmas, however, Carroll was fired from his job of 21 years as a physician in the emergency department of OSF Saint Francis Medical Center. He said the dispute began over his push for more beds in the department.

St. Francis officials will not comment on the firing but have said the hospital's support for the Haitian Hearts program will continue.

Despite his firing, Carroll retains medical privileges at St. Francis, and he said Tuesday he will focus, for now, on overseeing care for the Haitians.

''My goal is to keep the kids healthy, improve them, get them back to Haiti,'' he said.

Carroll's mother, Mary, was among the group at the airport. She said several potential employers have attempted to contact her son recently.

Carroll said Tuesday he is still working on treatment plans for the Haitians. ''I would like to give Children's Hospital (of Illinois at St. Francis) the privilege of taking care of Haitian children.''

All the Haitians he brought back have either rheumatic heart disease or congenital heart problems.

He first met the 28-year-old, Yvel, three years ago. Yvel had rheumatic fever as a child and likely will need two heart valves replaced, Carroll said. ''He was hard to turn down after three years.''

Dr. Stephen Bash and his wife, Patty, were among the group meeting Carroll. Bash, a pediatric cardiologist, said he is scheduled to see three of the patients immediately.

''I'll find out tomorrow (what is wrong with them) and see if we can fix them,'' he said.

The newly arrived Haitians spoke no English and were weary and hungry after 12 hours of travel. Carroll said a nurse he knew from St. Francis happened to be on the same flight from Miami, and she helped with the children. They are Katina, 7, Cathia, 11, Stanley, 5, Jean, 5, Maxime, 16, and Jocelyn, 11.

Debbie Fischer of Benson brought the four children in her household, ages 4 to 16, to meet the Haitian child she will host. She has hosted others in the past and as a nurse can handle children with special needs.

Helen Martin of Eureka and her daughter, Sally Achterberg, a board member of Children's Hospital, brought homemade comforters and bags filled with small items for the newly arriving Haitians.

Martin said her church, Roanoke Apostolic Christian Church, funded the bags and made the comforters through its World Relief program.

Achterberg said she is serving on the Haitian Hearts Auction committee, an event scheduled for April 12. She hopes the auction this year will raise $100,000 for the program. It raised $60,000 last year.

''People are very generous,'' she said.

CAPTION: Clinging to Dr. John Carroll, Katina, a 7-year-old Haitian girl, appears timid after arriving Tuesday night at Greater Peoria Regional Airport. Katina is among seven Haitians--six childre--who were flown to the United States through the Haitian Hearts program to undergo heart surgery.

---------------

My comments from today, February 19, 2009:

1. Maxime Petion, who was part of this group I brought to Peoria, was operated in Peoria in 2002. I took Maxime back to Haiti after he recovered from his surgery.

In 2006 while I was in Haiti, Maxime became sick again. He needed heart surgery. OSF refused him care along with all Haitian Hearts patients. He died at another medical center in the States in 2007 and is buried overlooking the Illinois River.

2. Katina, who is also referred to in this article, was operated at OSF also in Peoria. As documented on this blog in multiple posts, Katina is fighting for her life in Haiti now. She needs heart surgery again and, so far, I can't find a medical center for her. OSF is refusing her care too.


(Photograph of Maxime at the American Consulate in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This picture was taken one month before he died in 2007.)

Looking Back....

My comments today follow the article.

Journal Star
January 9, 2002

ELAINE HOPKINS

Fired doctor: Dispute began over suggested ER upgrades -- OSF official declines comment on issue

PEORIA - Dr. John Carroll was fired from OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in a dispute that began over more patient beds for the emergency department where he worked, he said Tuesday.

Carroll, an award-winning physician and founder of the Haitian Hearts program that brings sick children from Haiti to St. Francis for treatment, said he has no regrets about pushing for improved service for emergency patients.

''Would I do it again? Yes,'' he said.

Carroll said his job problems began with a letter he wrote about bed capacity in the emergency room, a letter which caused the hospital to discipline him in a ''punitive'' manner.

''The letter precipitated the incident and the discipline I disagreed with,'' he said.

The discipline involved placing him on ''probation'' for six months, Carroll said. The letter of dismissal that St. Francis sent to him mentioned ''disobedience,'' he said.

The 48-year-old Peoria native worked at the hospital for 21 years. St. Francis has been his only employer.

Hospital spokesman Chris Lofgren would not discuss the matter. ''It's an employee issue. We won't talk about it,'' he said.

Lofgren then added that Carroll ''was not fired because of ER issues. That's the only thing I will say at this point.''

Carroll said he was not offered another position at the hospital as the situation between him and his employer deteriorated. Both sides ''dug in their heels,'' he said.

Carroll acknowledged that the letter he sent to his colleagues and hospital officials circumvented the usual chain of command at the hospital. He knew he was taking a risk when he sent that letter, he said, adding, ''I wrote the letter with some trepidation.''

Carroll's firing, a week before Christmas, stunned his friends and supporters.
''He was by far the most compassionate doctor we had there,'' said a co-worker who didn't want to be identified. ''John has high standards of care and expects that care to be delivered to patients.''

The person said ''we are afraid to talk,'' for fear of being fired. ''We are in complete, absolute fear.''

''All he wanted to do is improve the ER procedures,'' a colleague said. ''He was frustrated. Others are also.''

People who have worked with Carroll confirmed Carroll's concerns about the emergency department. It was built to serve 35,000 patients a year but now is serving more than 60,000 annually. Some wait for hours, co-workers said.

Lofgren confirmed the usage figures, and said the hospital is planning to spend more than $2 million to alleviate the crowded conditions. The plans have been in the works ''for some time,'' he said.

Carroll has talked about his personal situation reluctantly, but said the truth should be told. He still believes in the hospital's mission, he said, and also does not want to jeopardize the hospital's support for the Haitian Hearts program.

He is leaving for Haiti soon and plans to stay there for a month. He said he has no idea what he will do about his career when he returns. He still retains physician privileges at the hospital, and his medical work was not an issue in his dismissal, he said.

Carroll has consulted an attorney about his dismissal, he said, but is reluctant to sue the hospital, because he doesn't want to enrich himself at the hospital's expense.

''It's not about money,'' he said of his dispute with St. Francis.
----------------


My comments on this article today, February 18, 2009:

1. While I was writing the letter to Mr. Steffen and my colleagues in September, 2001, another OSF employee in the Emergency Department strongly warned me that I may be fired if I sent the letter.

I viewed the ER overcrowding as a "hospital problem" that needed to be solved with everyone involved. Plus, I did not believe that Drs. Hevesy and Miller were strong enough or politically inclined to try and solve the overcrowding issue on their own.

2. During my first meeting with Mr. Steffen in early October, 2001 he told me in his office that "whenever there is bleeding the bleeding must be stopped before it turns into a hemorrhage" and that a "cancer needs to be cut out before it metastasizes". (Not exact quotes but very close.) He was referring to me.

3. During that same meeting with him, I told Mr. Steffen that I was worried about "institutional neglect" regarding the overcrowded Emergency Room. He asked me what "institutional neglect" was.

4. Mr. Lofgren may not have wanted to comment in the Journal about my termination, but he was sure talking inappropriately with other OSF employees. And I WAS fired regarding ER issues. Mr. Lofgren was not being truthful to reporter Elaine Hopkins.

5. The patient and employee satisfaction in the OSF ER was the lowest in the medical center. Dr. Hevesy looked at me once and said look what I have inherited. He meant that the ER was very dysfunctional under Rick Miller's direction.

6. And as Elaine Hopkins documented, we were seeing tens of thousands of patients more each year than the ER was designed to see. Elective (insured) patients were filling inpatient beds, so ER patients like mine had to wait a long time to be admitted. And studies performed since 2001 have documented increased morbidity and mortality for ER patients that are boarded in the ER.

7. I invited Mr. Steffen to come to the ER and work with us. I really thought it would be a win-win situation if he would come and join us for an evening. I thought that ER personnel attitudes would improve if they saw him working on the overcrowding issue, and I also thought that patients and their families would take solace in talking with the OSF administrator regarding their long wait in the ER.

Mr. Steffen declined my offer.

Looking Back

Peoria Journal Star
January 5, 2002

Editorial

John Carroll is the kind of a doctor all patients need

Knowing the dedication that Dr. John Carroll has shown the patients of St. Francis and the children of Haiti, his quiet dismissal was as loud as a bomb to many of his friends, volunteers and admirers.

Statements by hospital spokesman Chris Lofgren in the Journal Star were very confusing and left me wondering if this dismissal had really been done thoughtfully. How can Dr. Carroll ''still have hospital privileges to practice medicine at St. Francis'' and at the same time be told to ''leave the premises''?

I find it hard to believe that Haitian Hearts would be ''unaffected by John's departure.'' Dr. Carroll, the hospital administration and employees did not reveal the reason for dismissal. However, from statements in the Journal Star and knowing Dr. Carroll's dedication to his patients, I have to believe that the problem was due to differences with the administration over patient care and policy.

When a doctor employed by a hospital for 21 years hopes he doesn't get ''in trouble'' for carrying an infant to intensive care, there's something wrong. Also, Dr. Carroll being described as ''a perfectionist and a fighter for his patients'' may sound good to the public, but this attitude must have caused problems for the administration of St. Francis and proved to be detrimental to his career.

Dr. Carroll's friends, peers and co-workers have witnessed the dedication, self-sacrifice and care he has given his patients. The administration of St. Francis should have thought a lot longer before ever considering dismissal. He is a superb physician who will disagree vehemently with anyone or any organization that he believes does not give proper treatment to a patient. He is a doctor that all patients need in their corner when they enter an emergency room.

Terminating his employment at St. Francis will definitely not improve emergency room care and may make citizens of Peoria wonder why such an excellent doctor found it so difficult to fit into the mold dictated by his employer.

Dottie Canellas
Former St. Francis employee
Tucson, Ariz.

Looking Back...Haitian Hearts Skips a Beat

Peoria Journal Star
January 3, 2002

Phil Luciano

Haitian Hearts skips beat

Haitian Hearts still beats, but time will tell how long or how strong.

Its founder, Dr. John Carroll, was fired by OSF Saint Francis Medical Center last month. Since then, this newspaper has been deluged by calls and letters, most of them confused about the future of Haitian Hearts.

The official line from St. Francis: The hospital will keep donating its services.

But Dr. Carroll says he has been told St. Francis will stop assisting Haitian Hearts as early as this year - a move that would greatly reduce the number of children the group saves.

''The last thing we'd like to see is the demise of Haitian Hearts,'' says Carroll, 48.

Before we get to the nittygritty, let me make a disclosure: I've known Carroll for years and have worked with him at medical missions in Haiti. I'd consider him a friend, though I see him at most maybe three times a year.

I don't aim to vindicate John Carroll. I honestly have no idea why he was canned from St. Francis after 21 years in the emergency room. Maybe he doesn't brush his teeth enough, or he wears bunny slippers. But he did nothing nefarious: His termination had something to do with professional differences between Carroll and hospital poo-bahs.

The hospital refuses to discuss personnel matters, and Carroll won't talk about his firing. He doesn't want to burn any bridges that remain between St. Francis and Haitian Hearts, which he started in 1995.

Years before, Carroll had begun making medical missions to Haiti, the poorest county in the Western Hemisphere, where medical care is almost nonexistent for 95 percent of the population. During his visits, Carroll would examine children with severe ailments, many of them heart-related, that are treatable in the United States but fatal in Haiti.

Carroll began to bring back one or two kids a year, beg his cardiac colleagues for help and lean on St. Francis for assistance. Carroll began spending six months a year at Haitian medical clinics, and he'd find more and more kids with bum tickers.

St. Francis donates bed space, nurses and other services; it won't reveal the worth of its donations, but Carroll estimates the figure at about $257,000 a year. Cardiac surgeons and other specialists donate their time. Carroll himself covers many extraneous costs, such as air fare.

But those donations don't cover everything. Haitian Hearts treats about 10 children a year, at an average of $25,000 per hospital stay. However, complications can prompt overruns; one lad needed some $750,00 worth of care before returning to Haiti.

So Carroll created Haitian Hearts to help raise money. It's part of St. Francis's Children's Hospital of Illinois. Over the past three years, Haitian Hearts has raised nearly $600,000, with about $275,000 pledged for this year.

So what's the problem?

Lately, this newspaper's letters-to-the-editor have railed against Carroll's dismissal. Some question whether Haitian Hearts can survive.

Chris Lofgren, spokesman for St. Francis, wants people to understand that the hospital hired Carroll as an ER doctor, not as administrator of Haitian Hearts. The group is independent of the hospital, he says.

Carroll's termination had nothing to do with Haitian Hearts, Lofgren says. Further, he says, the hospital will continue to support the program as it has in the past, regardless of Carroll's firing.

''John's leaving (St. Francis) really doesn't change Haitian Hearts at all,'' Lofgren.

Not so, says Carroll. Though he won't talk about the explicit reason behind his termination, he says St. Francis CEO Keith Steffen wanted him to somehow change his ways.

''Haitian Hearts was held over my head by Keith Steffen,'' Carroll says. ''The implication was, Haitian Hearts would survive if I survived (at St. Franics).''

Hospital spokesman Lofgren says Steffen never tied Carroll's job to the future of Haitian Hearts. Yet Carroll says that after he was fired, St. Francis sources told him Haitian Hearts funding would be discontinued - part of a hospitalwide cost-cutting measure to offset expected decreases in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

If that were to happen, Haitian Hearts could continue, but at half-power or less. But that only takes into account dollars and cents.

Without his half-time job at St. Francis, Carroll cannot afford to spend half a year in Haiti. That means not only will he encounter fewer children, but he will have less time to wade through the quagmire of Haitian bureaucracy. Visas can take upwards of a year to procure, and that's only with a Haiti-savvy guy like Carroll greasing the wheels.

Plus, without a job, Carroll could have a harder time prompting donations. Potential contributors might be skittish about writing a check to Haitian Hearts when its lead physician isn't employed.

Carroll, along with the Haitian Hearts board of directors, plan to push forward - business as usual. Upwards of 10 Haitian kids are scheduled to come to St. Francis in the next couple of months, and Carroll says everything is in place for their treatment.

After that, who knows? But Carroll (who leaves this week for another monthlong clinic in Haiti) remains optimistic.

''If we can do only one children a year instead of 10, one is better than none,'' he says.

* Write Phil Luciano at 1 News Plaza, Peoria, IL 61643, or call 686-3155 or (800) 225-5757, Ext. 3155. E-mail him at pluciano@pjstar.com.
--------------------

My comments today, February 18, 2009:

1. As Phil accurately wrote, the future of Haitian Hearts was up in the air in early January, 2002. I don't think he believed Chris Lofgren or Keith Steffen either. And Mr. Steffen did indicate to me that Haitian Hearts at OSF depended on me being employed at OSF. And even if Mr. Steffen didn't fire me in December, 2001, he was telling others that Haitian Hearts days were numbered.

2. I sure did not want to be fired from OSF. I loved the place. Taking care of patients and teaching UICOMP medical students and resident physicians was fun. Also, some residents from UICOMP and other students and medical students from other medical centers in the U.S. travelled with me to Haiti and worked in the Haitian clinics and hospitals. It was a great experience for them and for me.

Also, working with Haitian Hearts host families in the Peoria area was a superb experience. We went through many tough times together when Haitian children had setbacks with surgery...but we went through it together, and usually everything worked out fine. At times, the local host family would travel back to Haiti with the child after recovery from surgery and present them to their Haitian mother. There are no words to express this situation.

However, the more I talked with Mr. Steffen and Dr. Hevesy, I could see that OSF was headed down the wrong path regarding the Emergency Department, intimidation of OSF employees, conflict of interest, general "administrative malaise" (described by a Monsignor in the Diocese), and lack of respect for the Ethical and Religious Directives that guide Catholic health care. Dr. David Gorenz, who is President of District 150 School Board, and Sue Wozniak, CFO at OSF-SFMC, even entered a meeting I was having with Sister Canisia through a side door from Mr. Steffen's office. I had not invited them. Their main goal was to sabotage my only meeting with 87 year old Sister Cansisia.

All in all, I thought it was time to let OSF fire me if that is what they wanted. Phil Luciano of course did not know what was happening in Mr. Steffen's office. He had no idea of what Mr. Steffen was saying to me or how bizarre he was acting.

A Look Back...Letters of Support

These letters of support were printed in the Forum section of the Peoria Journal Star.

My comments follow.
------------------


Peoria Journal Star
December 29, 2001

Editorial

Carroll's firing raises questions for St. Francis

It is very puzzling that the administrators at OSF St. Francis Medical Center would quietly fire the finest and most caring doctor in the emergency department. Was this done to intimidate other employees of the department so they would kowtow to administrators?

To me, the fact that Dr. John Carroll's dismissal was done quietly indicates guilt. I am not surprised that the administration did not want publicity for their action, given Dr. Carroll's sterling reputation in our community.

Dr. John Carroll wanted improvements made in the ER, but his suggestions were apparently rebuffed - probably because his ideas were superior to those of the administration. Dr. Carroll's dissatisfaction with the ER is certainly understandable given its recent rating of 25 out of a possible 100. Is this the kind of health care you want for you and your family?

The last time I was in the ER at St. Francis, I had to wait more than an hour before seeing medical personnel. During that time, I was left in a hall, and I felt like a spectacle for all to see. The two doctors I finally saw were not able to give a diagnosis. However, several days later, Dr. Carroll diagnosed my problem and proper medication was given.

By the way, who owns St. Francis? Why do the sisters allow situations such as this to occur? Do they ever observe procedures in the ER? Do the sisters attend meetings when important decisions are made? Do they know how the unfortunate situation created by uncaring administrators is affecting the reputation of their hospital? Why are they allowing the administrators to make important decisions that should not be made without the approval of the sisters? Did they approve the firing of Dr. Carroll?

Geraldine DuMars
Peoria



Peoria Journal Star
January 1, 2002

Editorial

St. Francis must keep supporting Haitian Hearts

OSF Saint Francis Medical Center has been very generous to Haitian Hearts. The sisters' mission needs to be preserved; Haitian Hearts is an excellent example of their love, compassion and devotion. They have supported Dr. John Carroll in his work for over six years. We want to thank the Sisters of St. Francis for their incredible generosity.

Dr. Carroll will not comment on his firing and he will not brag about his accomplishments. His patients from the emergency room and the host families of the Haitian patients are quick to tell everyone they know how he has selflessly devoted himself to their care. He has often met extended family members and others in emergency situations and made sure that we were taken care of. We are all stunned that he has been fired, because we have received such good personal care from Dr. Carroll and the other doctors in the emergency room.

The week before he was fired, he went to New Orleans and spoke to help raise money for Haitian Hearts and Children's Hospital. He knew he was going to be fired, but he went anyway. Nothing will stop him from helping those who need him. Those of us involved in Haitian Hearts hope and pray that his firing will not affect the future care of these very needy children.

There will be some financial difficulties, but we know that the sisters have been good to us in the past, and they will continue to be charitable and live up to their mission statement.

Dr. Carroll and his Haitian Hearts supporters have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last three years for Children's Hospital, and we will continue to raise funds for this cause that we so deeply believe in.

Mary Kay Hersemann
Washington


Peoria Journal Star
January 3, 2002

Editorial


Haitians Hearts can't continue without Carroll

The high integrity and the moral character of Dr. John Carroll has been an inspiration to all of us who have been associated with him in his work with Haitian Hearts and the emergency room at OSF hospital.

For over 20 years, he has always lived up to his oath as a humanitarian. The dismissal of Dr. Carroll from OSF, in such a degrading manner, is not due to any professional incompetence, but rather with the administration.

As lifelong supporters of OSF, we are bitterly disappointed in the reaction of the sisters by allowing the administration to dismiss Dr. Carroll. Just last month, Dr. Carroll was the recipient of the Catholic Diocese's Bishop's Award for Service. He also received the Governor's Award last year for his Haitian Hearts program. Through all his honors and work, Dr. Carroll has always put OSF and the Children's Hospital in the forefront.

Be not deceived; there is not a Haitian Hearts program without Dr. John Carroll. He is the founder, torchbearer and the keeper of this wonderful and compassionate program.

Rebecca, Fred and Jo Ann Schotthofer
Chillicothe

------------------

My thoughts today, February 17, 2009:

I was very grateful for the written support of these people.

However, Haitian Hearts had a bad feeling that OSF was going to withdraw their support of the program now that they had me out of the way. OSF was trying to reassure the public in the Journal and they even wrote a letter to Children's Hospital supporters saying that Haitian Hearts would continue at OSF.

Sister Judith Ann, President of OSF, had told me numerous times that the Sisters would "never turn down a child".

However, Keith Steffen, Paul Kramer, and OSF ended all financial support for Haitian Hearts in July, 2002.

Our worst fears were realized.

A Look Back and Lessons Learned

The "take home" lessons are listed below the article.
--------------


Peoria Journal Star
December 21, 2001

ELAINE HOPKINS

St. Francis quietly fires doctor -- Renowned Haitian Hearts founder will keep healing children

PEORIA - A prominent OSF Saint Francis Medical Center physician who founded the Haitian Hearts program has lost his job at the hospital.

Dr. John Carroll, whose program brings sick children from Haiti to Peoria for treatment, said he was fired from St. Francis on Tuesday. ''I was told to leave the premises,'' he said Thursday, adding the ''situation had evolved over a number of weeks.''

St. Francis spokesman Chris Lofgren said the hospital cannot comment on why Carroll lost his job as an emergency room physician.

''This was not done lightly,'' Lofgren said. ''it was done thoughtfully over a long period of time.''

Carroll said he was not sure of his long-term plans, but he is planning to leave for Haiti on Jan. 9 for a monthlong stay. He wants to bring back more children, he said. Without advanced medical care, these children will die, he said.

''The main thing to me is the future of Haitian Hearts,'' Carroll said. He would not discuss the reasons for his job loss, but said he regretted leaving.

Carroll, 48, worked in the hospital's emergency department and has been at the hospital for 21 years. A Peoria native, he did his residency there and never has worked anywhere else.

Carroll has won numerous awards and brought national publicity to St. Francis and its Children's Hospital for the Haitian Hearts program, and also raised money for the program.

He said he has raised $819,000 in donations and pledges for the Children's Hospital of Illinois at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in the past three years.
''We're the single-highest private donor to OSF Children's Hospital,'' he said.
Carroll still has hospital privileges to practice medicine at St. Francis, Lofgren said.

Asked about the Haitian Hearts program, Lofgren responded, ''as it stands right now, it's unaffected by John's departure.''

Carroll will have to discuss future treatment of the Haitian children with the staff and physicians who treat them, Lofgren added.

Heart surgeon Dr. Dale Geiss, who has worked with Carroll and donated his services for the Haitian children, termed Carroll ''an outstanding individual and superb physician.'' He said he was not familiar with the issues leading to Carroll's job loss.

Saying he hopes Carroll stays in Peoria, Geiss added, ''I've been assured that Haitian Hearts will continue to be supported by St. Francis if that is what Dr. Carroll wants.''

Other physicians also support the program, he said.

Dr. Greg Tudor, who worked with Carroll, said hospital employees were told not to comment on Carroll's departure. Carroll is ''a community icon and nothing short of that. I can't believe it,'' he said.

Karol Holmes of Tremont is caring for a 1-year-old Haitian baby who has been treated at St. Francis since May.

''Everybody in Haitian Hearts is devastated,'' she said. ''I can't begin to understand it.''

Carroll has given ''his whole life for this. The emergency room and Haitian Hearts is his whole life. His compassion is incredible. I've never known a man like him,'' she said.

She told of Carroll fighting to save the baby's life, and at one point, personally carrying the infant to the pediatric intensive care unit without prior approval, saying ''I hope I don't get in trouble for this.''

She and others described Carroll as a perfectionist and a fighter for his patients.
''He's pretty strong willed. That's not a bad thing. If I'm sick and dying, I want him on my side,'' Holmes said.

Holmes is planning to accompany Carroll to Haiti in January, where they will seek the mother's approval for the Holmes family to adopt the baby, who will need medical care for years.

In the months before that adoption can take place, she said, the family will be dependent on Haitian Hearts and St. Francis for medical care for the boy. Carroll's situation has her worried, she said. ''What am I going to do without Carroll?''

Geiss said that Carroll's use of expensive medical resources for the Haitian children is not an issue for St. Francis, whose officials have often expressed support for Haitian Hearts.

About 75 children from Haiti have been treated since 1995, Carroll said.

''A lot of families are involved,'' he said. ''I don't think it's done anywhere else in the U.S., and I don't think the generosity of hospitals anywhere in the U.S.'' can match the generosity at St. Francis.
--------------------
My comments today, February 16, 2009:


1. This article was written a few days after I was fired from OSF in 2001. As documented in Peoria’s Medical Mafia, I was placed on probation at OSF on September 28, 2001. The day before I had written OSF administrator Keith Steffen warning him of the overcrowded and dangerous Emergency Department at OSF.

I was also aware of OSF Emergency Department Director Dr. George Hevesy’s financial conflict of interest with Advanced Medical Transport. I did not feel that Dr. Hevesy or Dr. Rick Miller, previous OSF-ER Director, would be able to do much of anything about overcrowding in the ER due to the fact that they both had excellent jobs in the ER and Mr. Steffen had too much on them for either of them to contest him on anything.

2. I was attempting to save Haitian Hearts at this point. I had been told by an insider that Mr. Steffen was going to withdraw all financial support from Haitian Hearts…I just didn’t know when he was going to do this. (OSF withdrew all financial support for Haitian Hearts in July, 2002...six months after I was fired.) Dr. Geiss was given the wrong information when he was quoted above saying that OSF would continue their support of Haitian Hearts. Paul Kramer, Executive Director of Children's Hospital of Illinois (CHOI), told me in his office before I was fired, that Haitian Hearts was becoming "too much competition" for Children's (due to our very successful volunteer fundraising). Caterpillar Inc. was donating significant money to Haitian Hearts that went directly to CHOI. I think this really unnerved OSF because they wanted donated money to go to the Milestone Project, not to children from Haiti who needed heart surgery. (Also, $9,500 dollars from Caterpillar to Haitian Hearts in 2001, months before I was fired, turned up missing at Children's Hospital of Illinois...I wonder where it went...)

Even though I was fired, we were able to keep Haitian Hearts alive at many other medical centers in the United States.

3. In the months before he fired me, in his office, Mr. Steffen would smile and tell me, “When this comes out about you, John, it won’t be good.” When I asked him what he was talking about, he would just shake his head and smile. He spoke to other employees about me and to people outside of the hospital. They told me what he said.

Mr. Lofgren, hospital spokesman, also spoke inappropriately about my termination... he admitted to me that he did. (Much of what Mr. Steffen and Mr. Lofgren were saying came back to me and my family.)

How was I supposed to explain this bizarre behavior by OSF to Elaine Hopkins, the Journal Star reporter and, at the same time, try to protect Haitian Hearts from OSF's Administration?

I know that Mr. Steffen and some of his administrative staff are very dangerous people. They sure shouldn’t be in charge of OSF-SFMC. But OSF-Corporate and the OSF Sisters and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria know much of Mr. Steffen’s history and must just using him. And from a very good source, they will terminate him when the time is right.

4. As reported above, the Emergency Room staff of doctors and nurses were told by OSF ER directors not to comment on my firing. Everyone was being muzzled. Mr. Lofgren even sent out an e mail to the entire hospital saying that no one should comment. (I guess it was ok if he did.) The Executive Committee of physicians at OSF weren’t even consulted with my termination.

5. As stated in the article, I was grateful to OSF for their support of the Haitian kids. All physicians and the perfusionists on the open heart team donated all of their services. During 2002, the year after I was fired, and the year that OSF terminated Haitian Hearts, we donated $445,000 more dollars to OSF-Children's Hospital of Illinois.

6. So what have I learned from this experience with the OSF-Administrative team? I have learned alot. I have seen a few people cover for their colleagues when things get tough. I have also seen how people react when they are scared. People are afraid to take on OSF for so many reasons.

And most importantly I have seen how a small group of people at the top of OSF-SFMC destroyed the lives of many Haitian kids who deserved a chance. I have had the privilege of working with so many good people that took care of Haitian kids in their homes. I have seen their pain too as Haitian Hearts at OSF was destroyed.

A Look Back

Peoria Journal Star

August 14, 2003
ELAINE HOPKINS


Haitian Hearts will continue its program -- Patients will be treated in the U.S. and elsewhere


PEORIA - Haitian Hearts will continue to bring heart patients from Haiti for treatment at hospitals in the U.S. and perhaps elsewhere, its founder, Dr. John Carroll said Wednesday.

Carroll returned last week from Haiti where he arranged for two adult patients to be treated in the U.S. One is scheduled to receive a pacemaker at St. John's Hospital in Springfield, he said, and the other is to have heart valve surgery at a Jacksonville, Fla., hospital.

In July, OSF Healthcare System and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria announced they would no longer participate in the Haitian Hearts program.

Haitian Hearts has brought nearly 100 Haitians, mainly children, from Haiti to Peoria for medical treatment, mostly heart surgery at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.

On Tuesday, the last Haitian child in Peoria, a 10-year-old girl who has been in the U.S. since last year, received heart surgery at St. Francis, a follow-up to earlier surgery. Carroll said the surgery went well.

Doctors, nurses and others who have cared for this child and other Haitians have expressed regret that the program is ending in Peoria, Carroll said. Some have donated their time and materials, and even offered to care for Haitian children in their homes while they recovered, he said.

Carroll said he now is working with others interested in Haiti, including the Mercy and Sharing Foundation, founded by philanthropist Susan Scott Krabacher. The organization operates an orphanage and medical center in Haiti. Its Web site is www.haitichildren.com.

Carroll said he hopes that up to 20 children soon will be placed in hospitals in the U.S., Canada and Europe for surgery. He has identified 38 who need surgery. A 19-year-old died while on the waiting list, he said.

Since December, St. Francis has refused to approve any visas for medical care for Haitian Hearts patients.

St. Francis fired Carroll in December 2001 from his job of 21 years as an emergency room physician after a dispute with hospital managers.
-----------------

Looking back from today, February 15, 2009:

1. Many Haitian Hearts patients in Haiti have died since this article was published. Two young men that were operated at OSF, but were denied care at OSF when they needed heart surgery again, have died too. Haitian Hearts has been able to get a few OSF Haitian Hearts patients operated in different medical centers, and all have done well, but they wouldn't have if it were up to OSF. All Haitian Hearts patients are still being refused at OSF.

2. Bishop Daniel Jenky and the The Catholic Diocese of Peoria had one 45 minute meeting with Haitian Hearts in February, 2003. There were no other Haitian Hearts meetings with Bishop Jenky. Ever. When my brother asked Bishop Jenky at this single meeting if I could go to Haiti and bring back five sick Haitian kids to OSF for heart surgery, he replied no.

Yet, two weeks later in his office with Patricia Gibson (Diocesan Chancellor and Canon Law Lawyer) present, Bishop Jenky told me that I needed to go to Confession to him in one year if I petitioned for a Catholic Tribunal Court against OSF. He was holding me responsible for any Haitian deaths that occurred in this time period. My education how the Diocese acted behind closed doors was "up close and personal". I left the Chancery in disbelief.

3. Since this article, Haitian Hearts has personally brought or consulted in approximately 150 Haitians who have come to the United States for surgery. Most have been children. Most have had heart surgery.

4. And my "dispute with hospital managers" noted above, included overcrowding in the OSF Emergency Department. No one who worked there at the time would have disputed this.

Since this article was written, OSF has admitted in the Journal Star that the OSF-ER was dramatically overburdened. Work on a new ER has started as part of the one-half billion dollar OSF Milestone Project and an Observation Unit for ER patients was started several years ago.

Haitian Mom and Kids

This Haitian mom brought her two kids to a pediatric clinic in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince.

Have you ever seen a more beautiful family?

Letter to New Ethics Director at OSF

Dear Ms. Skujdak Mackiewicz,

I would like to present the following as a formal ethics consult to you as Ethics Director at OSF.

Katina Antoine is a 13 year old Haitian girl who suffers from valvular heart disease. I brought her to OSF in Peoria in 2002 as part of the Haitian Hearts program.

She underwent mitral valve surgery at OSF and recovered at my brother’s home in Peoria. She attended St. Thomas Church with my brother's family and St. Thomas School sends a yearly monetary gift to Katina which pays for her school in Haiti.

I have been following her in Haiti since I took her back in 2002.

I examined her in November, 2008 and obtained an echocardiogram. Her physical exam and echocardiogram revealed that Katina needs a new mitral valve. The repair done on her mitral valve at OSF in Peoria gave her a couple of years, but she now needs a prosthetic valve placed in the mitral position.

As you may know, complex technical heart surgery such as this is not done in Haiti.

Several years ago a letter from Douglass Marshall, OSF attorney, informed me that OSF would not operate on any patient referred by me to OSF. This included Haitian Hearts patients.

Two of OSF’s young Haitian Hearts patients, Jean-Baptiste and Maxime, have died very painful deaths in the last couple of years after being denied care at OSF.

I have tried to get Katina accepted into numerous other medical centers in the United States without success. Other medical centers seem quite concerned that OSF is not following up with their Haitian patients.

I am afraid that Katina is running short on time.

The Catholic Post recently quoted you regarding your belief and reliance on the Ethical and Religious Directives regarding Catholic health care in the United States. I would hope that you and the Ethics Committee would review these Directives with Attorney Marshall and OSF’s Administration so their policy denying OSF’s Haitian Hearts patients care would be changed immediately.

OSF's leaders in Corporate and at the Medical Center need to come together to give Katina the concern and the care she deserves in Peoria.

Since 1995, Haitian Hearts has donated over 1.1 million dollars to Children’s Hospital of Illinois. We are able to pay up to $10,000 dollars for Katina’s care at OSF.

I have sent you this letter via “snail mail” since my OSF e mails have been blocked in the past. I did not think that you would receive my request any other way. (I did leave a voice mail on your phone the other day, but did not hear back from you.)

Also, I have published this letter on my web logs, www.dyinginhaiti.blogspot.com and www.pmmdaily.blogspot.com. Also, these two sites will provide you with an adequate historical background regarding OSF’s negligent and unethical behavior regarding Haitian Hearts patients.

I will publish your response regarding this consult in a future post. As Katina’s physician and guardian in the United States, I will also share this post and your response with Katina’s parents in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Physicians are supposed to be “attorneys for the poor”. My hope is that you will be an “ethicist for the poor”. Katina and her family are indeed poor.

Haitian Hearts fervently wishes that you and the Ethics Department at OSF will have the courage to convince others at OSF that accepting Katina is the only good ethical decision that can be made.


Sincerely,

John A. Carroll, M.D.
Peoria, Illinois

OSF has New "Ethics Director"

The Peoria Catholic Post February 8, 2009 announced that OSF has a new ethics director.

She is Birgitta Skujdak Mackiewicz.

The Post reports:

"Sujdak Mackiewicz said that when she receives requests for ethics consultations, for example, she tries to eduate all involved so they feel they have the necessary resources to address problems now and in the future.

"They're alway welcome to call, of course, but at least this gives them tools to work through some of these issues, to recognize ethical issues where they may not have seen them before," she told the Post.

"In terms of policy development, Sujdak Mackiewicz said OSF-SFMC, like all Catholic hospitals, relies to a great extent on the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. This document was developed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine.

"Our consultation service here at the hospital is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has been in existence for some time," according to Sujdak Mackiewicz, who said anyone can request an ethics consultation."

The article reports that she handles ethics calls the majority of the time and works closely with Dr. Gerald McShane, who chairs the OSF Saint Francis Ethics Committee and is president of the OSF Medical Group.

Sujdak Mackiewicz states that "above all, ethics consultations should improve patient care."

My comments on the article:

1. Why does OSF need an "ethics director"? They already have Drs. Gerry McShane and OSF Corporate Ethics Director, Joe Piccione.

2. I feel bad that this new ethics director is working with Gerry and Joe. I have submitted multiple ethics consults to both Gerry and Joe over the past eight years. Never once have I been granted an ethics consultation from either of them that I know of. If the Ethics Department and committee talked about my concerns at OSF (the abandonment of Haitian Hearts patients, the Advanced Medical Transport monopoly on ambulance services, and the management style of OSF Administrator Keith Steffen and his use of fear with employees), I am unaware of any of their conclusions. One one occasion I spoke with Dr. McShane in his office about Mr. Steffen's management style and asked him to present it to the Ethics Committee. He said that he would not because Mr. Steffen sat on the Ethics Committee. Dr. McShane referred me to Howard Wiles at OSF, the Compliance Officer.

3. Both Dr. McShane and Joe Piccione, along with Monsignor Steven Rohlfs, were very instrumental in ending the Haitian Hearts program at OSF. This does not seem to be consistent with Sujdak Mackiewicz's statements above about OSF following the Ethical and Religious Directives. In fact, Dr. McShane, Mr. Piccione, and Monsignor Rohlfs did the opposite.

4. I called Sujdak Mackiewicz's office yesterday, and left a voice mail. I want to make yet another formal consult to the ethics department at OSF for their abandonment of their Haitian patient, 13 year old Katina Antoine. I did not get a return phone call. (My e mails to OSF have been cut off for several years. Dr. McShane played a role in that via an e mail I received several years ago.)

5. So, according to Sujdak Mackiewicz, it looks like anyone can make ethics consults 24 hours per day to OSF unless it is about medical negligence of Haitian children, the OSF-AMT ambulance monopoly and conflict of interest, or fear used against employees by OSF's administrator.

6. I guess I need to give her time. She is new on the job and probably doesn't understand all of the people that will be working against her at OSF.

Katina is Sick

Frandy is a 19 year old Haitian Hearts patient that helps us in Haiti.

He received a call from Katina's father yesterday.

Below is an internet chat with Frandy from yesterday February 9, 2009:


6:18 PM Dejean: are you there Maria?
i just have a quick news about Katina
6:19 PM please tell dr Carroll that she's not doing well, her father called me this morning to inform me about that
me: ok frandy. how is she not doing well?
6:20 PM we are looking hard for a hospital
Dejean: she's surffering because of her belly
ok
6:21 PM me: her stomach hurts? is it big?
Dejean: the ball around her neck does not hurt her
6:22 PM yes her stomach, i don't know if it s big
me: frandy this is dr john is she short of breath...eske li soufle anle
6:23 PM Dejean: no
ok
me: please tell the father we are searchig for a hospital
6:24 PM Dejean: her stomach and the place where she was operated on are hurting her
ok i will
me: ok, thanks frandy
Dejean: and i will email you more about that
me: dont let them give up hope
6:25 PM Dejean: no
never

Pressing Forward with Katina

Another medical center will review Katina's case this coming week. They will decide to accept her or not accept her for heart surgery.

With all the money in Peoria, and all the medical expertise, and with all of the people in the area that want Katina to be able to return to OSF, it is so amazing that she is not allowed to come back to OSF.

A few people in key positions are blocking her from returning to Peoria and it may cost Katina her life. This position cost Jean-Baptiste and Maxime their lives.

It does not surprise me that only a few people are obstructing her care. What is bothersome is the silence of people that know better.

What More Can be Said? This is Haiti in 2009

I received this e mail yesterday from a Haitian friend of mine from Cite Soleil:

Dearest john,

forgive me firstly for my disturbing you I just wanted to make you this request about to make this request to someone of you in HAiti

to lend me what he has cause we all in the house are very hunger while I make you this e-mail I am very hungry but, it is only what I can do is to make this e-mail to you to attemp this chance to se if you would answer to me when consider how the situation is very much hard .
like sickness to take care of.
children to feed.
other problem to realize
and so I am completely empty.
hope you will do that for me by tomorrow cause our need is very much great.
I will go back home witout nothing all eyes are on me when I enter home to see if i have brought anyhting .

please I will do that by faith to check my e-mail tomorrow to find a positive answer from you .

please do that for me.
tahnk you

Katina Rejected Again

I received another "Katina rejection" yesterday.

Medical centers are just not anxious to operate OSF-SFMC's patients from Haiti.

OSF-SFMC in Peoria needs to do the right thing. They need to accept Katina and give her state-of-the-art medical care.

But when OSF's heart is constructing a $400 million expansion of their medical center in Peoria, Katina's heart just doesn't count.

Many other children's hospitals around the country are aware of OSF's unethical and negligent behavior abandoning these kids.

How many more Haitian Hearts patients are going to suffer and die while the OSF Sisters and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria remain silent?

Bet You Won't Read This in The Peoria Catholic Post

CBS News Sunday Morning had this story last Sunday.

It is national news....except in Peoria.

About a "carrier", formerly known as "expectant mother", who delivered a baby at OSF-SFMC in Peoria. With in vitro fertilization (IVF) she was paid to be a surrogate mother for a couple from New York.

The Catholic Church does not like IVF.

And OSF continues to let my Haitian kids who need repeat heart surgery die out of site and out of mind. These Haitian kids, who are already out-of-the-womb, have moms(not "carriers") in Haiti that really care about them and do not want to give them up.

But the Haitian kids don't get a bed at OSF. They just don't count.

Katina Needs Surgery

Katina is a 13 year old Haitian girl. She had heart surgery at OSF in Peoria in 2002.

She needs repeat heart surgery and OSF will not operate on her. Haitian Hearts has contacted other medical centers and they believe she is OSF's ethical and medical responsibility. And she is.

I examined her two months ago in Haiti and she needs heart surgery soon or she will die like Jackson and Maxime.

OSF's International Committee needs to accept Katina. Haitian Hearts is able to give OSF $10,000 dollars for her surgery.

Her passport is up to date and I would go to Haiti to get her if OSF accepted her.

See this video of Katina.

How OSF is willing to let this little girl die in Haiti is beyond me.

No Wonder People Don't Trust

The Peoria Catholic Post December 21, 2008 has an article on the Vatican document "Dignitas Personae" (The Dignity of a Person).

This document reaffirms that Catholic teaching opposes all fertilization techniques that separate procreation from the conjugal act.

Paul Kortz, R.N. is FertilityCare coordinator at OSF in Peoria. Paul teaches Natural Family Planning (NFP) at OSF which is consistent with the Church's teaching.

Paul states in the Catholic post article, “Keeping this in mind we are all called by God to use our intellects to become participants in the work of our Creator. The fight of our intellect provides the means to share an ethical responsibility to discern if medical interventions ever compromise the sacredness of life.”

“Challenging as it may be, we must make concerted efforts to educate our family, friends, and associates that participation in any intervention that undermines the dignity of the human person is to be avoided."

So why did the Catholic Diocese of Peoria and OSF create a loophole for OSF physicians to write prescriptions for oral contraceptives? This policy was created about 15 years ago and flies in the face of Catholic teaching.

Humanae Vitae, written in 1968, states this regarding physicians and health care providers:

Paragraph 27: To Doctors and Medical Personnel

We hold those physicians and medical personnel in the highest esteem who, in the exercise of their profession, value above every human interest the superior demands of their Christian vocation. Let them persevere, therefore, in promoting on every occasion the discovery of solutions inspired by faith and right reason, let them strive to arouse this conviction and this respect in their associates. Let them also consider as their proper professional duty the task of acquiring all of the knowledge needed in this delicate sector, so as to be able to give to those married persons who consult them wise counsel and healthy direction, such as they have a right to expect.

Does OSF and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria promote on every occasion the discovery of faith and right reason and arouse this conviction and this respect in their associates?

I don't think so and money is the reason according to OSF Catholic Ethicist Joseph Piccione.

No mention was made in the article regarding any NFP physician working for OSF. I wonder if OSF even has a NFP at this point. Their only NFP doctor was run out after asking for more money for NFP and being told that OSF needed to pay for the half billion dollar Milestone Project. Women's issues regarding Catholic teachings were given very short shrift.

Also, the Catholic Post article is deceiving by casting eyes on embattled Governor Blagojevich and his policy regarding health care providers and following their consciences. The Post left out that OSF and the Diocese were intricately linked in allowing OSF physicians to provide oral contraceptives. It seems to me that The Diocese and OSF were more effective than the Governor regarding this issue.

The Post article ends with the editor pointing the reader to www.popepaulvi.com. (Pope Paul VI Institute). OSF FertilityCare Department takes much of its philosophy from this Institute.

The Pope Paul VI Institute website states it is dedicated to building a culture of life by confronting the culture of death:

• By confronting the contraceptive mentality, which is the gateway to abortion.
• By confronting artificial reproductive technologies that suppress, distort, and alter women's fertility; that negatively impact marriages and families; and that lead to the "new abortion."
• By confronting moral erosion.
• By confronting Planned Parenthood's agenda.

So when all is said and done, the reader should be confused regarding what the Catholic Diocese of Peoria and OSF really believe regarding pro-life issues.

The Catholic Diocese of Peoria

See Elaine Hopkins post today.

Law of Reform

Niccoló Machiavelli presciently wrote in 1513, "There is nothing more difficult to manage, more dubious to accomplish, nor more doubtful of success . . . than to initiate a new order of things. The reformer has enemies in all those who profit from the old order and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit from the new order."

This keenly observed dynamic, known as the "Law of Reform," suggests that a determined and concentrated minority fighting to preserve the status quo has a considerable advantage over a more diffuse majority who favor reform but have varying degrees of willingness to fight for a promised but uncertain benefit.

New England Journal of Medicine, January 2009

Bishop Jenky Needs to March in Peoria

The Peoria Catholic Post has a lead article this week that reports that Bishop Daniel Jenky is going to Washington D.C. to march for a pro life culture in the United States.

"Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, will join hundreds of representatives from the Diocese of Peoria and tens of thousands of other participants at the national March for Life and supporting events this week in Washington, D.C.

“This year especially, I thought it was necessary to witness in Washington, D.C., to the Gospel of Life,” Bishop Jenky told The Catholic Post, noting the Jan. 22 march recalling the 36th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions legalizing abortion comes just days after President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated.

“The election of the new president is an occasion that I believe is going to ask of the church to redouble our pro-life efforts,” he said.


The print version of the Post has a quote by Bishop Jenky stating that any cooperation that leads to abortion is "evil". This was not on the web version of the article.

I would suggest that Bishop Jenky "redouble" his efforts right here in Peoria.

Why shouldn't Bishop Jenky march with hundreds of central Illinois pro life supporters at OSF-SFMC against OSF's artificial contraceptive policy that the Diocese helped create and seems to support? This OSF policy is definitely not pro life. One of the actions of contraceptives is potentially abortifacient. (See this article.)

My brother and I would march with Bishop Jenky regarding this issue. He has our support regarding this.

Interestingly, an advertisement on the Catholic Diocese web page is from OSF HealthCare--A Commitment to Life. Maybe that is where the answer really is regarding the Diocese's "cooperation" with OSF.

The African-American Womb is a Dangerous Place

In Haiti the maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the world. This is not good for the baby inside if the mother's health deteriorates prior to delivery.

And the infant mortality rate in Haiti is one of the highest in the world also. And part of the reason many babies die before age one year in Haiti is that their mother is dead.

In the United States the infant mortality rate of black infants is 2.5 times higher than whites. And the maternal mortality rate in the United States for black women is 3 times the mortality rate for white women.

And in the United States, a black baby is 5 times more likely to be killed in the womb (abortion) than is a white baby.

See the following article regarding abortion in African-Americans in the United States. It is written by Reverend Clenard H. Childress, Jr.

Black Genocide

What would Martin Luther King say to a nation where an African-American baby is 5 times more likely to be killed in the womb than a Caucasian baby?

MONTCLAIR, N.J. (Black Genocide.org) - This is probably the most asked question presently in America since the end of the Civil War, but I am wondering: who is asking it more? Due to the historical implications and the political climate throughout the world, the Global spotlight is clearly on the United States. The world wants to see how Barack Obama will navigate the tumultuous course ahead of him.

In his Election Night Acceptance Speech he referenced Dr. Martin Luther King's famous and prophetic speech, "I've been to the mountain top." Barack Obama said, "We may not get there in one year or four years." It was at that point there seemed to be a degree of uncertainty and this is totally understandable when one considers the state of economic and social affairs of our country and global unrest. I would personally encourage and insist the nation ask another question along with the previous inquiry: 'where do we go from here and what will it look like when we get there?'

In Dr. Martin Luther King's last and most radical presidential address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he entitled his message just what we find ourselves asking at the moment: "Where Do We Go From Here?" Martin said, "First we must massively assert our dignity and worth, we must stand up amidst a system that will oppress us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values." Martin Luther King then says that the priority in getting to your destination, are your values, not economy. If that's what's needed then the journey must be delayed indefinitely until we gain those unassailable, unmovable, indestructible values that are divine, lofty and exalted.

But where do we go from here? We can go nowhere until this nation recognizes all of its citizens, especially our most vulnerable, many whose 'unalienable Rights' are presently denied. Until our national values reflect the Giver of our rights —"endowed by their Creator" — as the Declaration of Independence describes to us, there will be no 'there' there when we arrive. In so saying, as Martin Luther King was speaking at a church conference in Nashville Tennessee, he spoke across the decades these profoundly portentous words:

"There must be the recognition of the sacredness of human personality. Deeply rooted in our political and religious heritage is the conviction that every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth. Our Hebraic Christian tradition refers to this inherent dignity of man in the biblical term the image of God. This innate worth referred to in the phrase the image of God is universal, shared in equal portions by all men. There is no graded scale (not pay scale) of essential worth; there is no divine right of one race that differs from the divine right of another. Every human has etched in his personality the indelible stamp of the creator. The idea of dignity and worth of human personality is expressed eloquently and unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence."

Allan Guttmacher reveals that the most dangerous place for an African-American to be is in the womb of their African-American mother. When the Man on the Mountain, Barack Obama, says one of the first things he is going to do is to get the Freedom of Choice Act passed, FOCA would eliminate all state prohibitions and restrictions on abortion, the leading cause of death of African-Americans; I do not want to go to that land. When King went up, he said, "I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you but we as a people will one day get to the promise land." And what land is this? A land with unassailable and majestic values; a land where America lives out its creed; a land where the endowed rights of the Creator are given to all of its citizens, even the unborn!

Ironically, when Dr. Martin Luther King gave this address, he was deeply concerned with the rate of infant mortality. Dr. King said, "The rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites and there are twice as many Negroes dying in Vietnam as whites in proportion to their size in the population." In Iraq, 6% of the deaths are African-Americans yet African-Americans make up 12% of the population. When compared to the war against children in the womb, 37% of all abortions are African-Americans or more than 3 times the percentage of representation. 52% of all African-American pregnancies are ended tragically through abortion.

When I read of Martin's deep concerns over the infant mortality rate in the 60s, what would Dr. King say if he could have lived in a nation where 16 million African American infants were victims of the abortion industry? Even if you take into consideration AIDs, violent crimes, accidents, cancer and heart disease, this number would not account for half the amount of infants killed in the womb by abortion. What would Martin Luther King say to a nation where an African-American baby is 5 times more likely to be killed in the womb than a Caucasian baby? Where do we go from here, and what will it look like when we get there if Obama's agenda comes to fruition?

Interestingly, one day a newsman came to Martin Luther King and said, "Dr. King, don't you think you're going to have to stop now opposing the war and be more in line with the administration's policy. As I understand it, it has hurt the budget of your organization and people who once respected you, have lost respect for you. Don't you feel you really have to change your position?"

Dr. King answered, "Sir, I'm sorry you don't know me. I'm not a consensus leader. I do not determine what is right and wrong by looking at the budget of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I've not taken a Gallup Poll of the majority opinion. Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher of consensus, but a molder of consensus. On some positions, cowardice ask the question, is it expedient? And then, expedience comes along and asks the questions, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?"

I absolutely concur!

Rev. Clenard H. Childress, Jr., is the senior pastor of The New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, NJ., the founder of the website Blackgenocide.org and president of Life Education And Resource Network, Northeast. He is a contributing writer for Catholic Online.

The Diocese has Problems

See this Forum article in the Peoria Journal Star.

One of the commenters, Celsion, hits it on the head. My experience and my family's experience with Bishop Jenky, Monsignor Rohlfs, and Patricia Gibson regarding saving Haitian Hearts in Peoria was very similar.

Unfortunately, Celsion's advice about needing a lawyer when speaking with the Diocese is good advice.

I can't trust The Catholic Diocese of Peoria to do the right thing.

The question is what to do?

Catholic Diocese of Peoria in Trouble in the 90's, and "We" Didn't Even Know It

I found this article in the Chicago Tribune from 2002.

So while the Catholic Diocese of Peoria was firing a Notre Dame High School teacher and working with OSF-SFMC to create a policy for oral contraceptive prescriptions in the 90's, it seems they were also trying to buy the silence of an "archivist" for the Diocese.

And Archbishop John J. Myers said that when new Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky defrocked seven priests that he (Bishop Myers) had no real knowledge of the individual allegations against the priests.

What? Why didn't he know?

And how did new Bishop Jenky learn so much so quickly which enabled him to defrock these priests?

I don't get it.

In the early 2000's when the Catholic Diocese of Peoria turned their back on dying Haitian kids, I was so surprised. But I sure didn't know how the Diocese conducted business at that point.

I do now.

The last sentence in the article below says it all.
--------------------


Bishop on Abuse Committee under Fire
Handling of Cases in Peoria Is Cited

By Flynn McRoberts and David Heinzmann
Chicago Tribune
June 2, 2002

The grim news spilling from this central Illinois river town in recent weeks has carried all the hallmarks of the American Catholic Church's present nightmare:

Priests ousted from the ministry after allegations of sexual misconduct. Apologies to angry victims. The belated creation of a committee that includes lay professionals to better deal with abusive pastors.

Lost in the familiarity, though, is the fact that the man who until recently led those priests and victims is now one of eight prelates charged with mapping a way out of the church's crisis.

John J. Myers, who was promoted last year to lead the Newark archdiocese, was recently named to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse. The committee is writing the policy proposal that will be put before the conference in Dallas later this month.

But some parishioners, pastors and victims in the Peoria diocese are challenging Myers' own judgment in the decade he led 240,000 Catholics spread over 26 central Illinois counties. Given his own approach to the issue, they are questioning his fitness to carry out his new role in addressing the church's mishandling of clerical sex abuse.

Those critics describe an ambitious "ecclesiastical politician," as one priest put it, who responded to some victims' cries only after they threatened to go public; moved certain problem priests without informing parishioners; and allegedly sought to purchase the silence of a church archivist who had gathered information on priests.

With his orthodox theology and reputation for relishing the princely trappings of Catholic prelates, Myers has prompted controversy throughout his climb from the Peoria diocese of his childhood to leadership of the 1.3 million-strong archdiocese of Newark.

Among his critics, Myers' notable moves in Peoria included his installation of a hot tub in the bishop's residence and his push to remove a Catholic teacher who had defied a priest's warning and allowed a classroom discussion on the ordination of women.

But it is not Myers' conservative theological bent that has drawn attention in recent weeks. More to the point is the fact that his successor, Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, quickly decided he needed to craft a significantly tougher policy to address sexual misconduct by priests--an issue that some church leaders already had addressed.

In the most dramatic move, Jenky on Thursday removed seven accused priests.

In an interview late Friday, Myers, 60, rejected accusations that he was slow or reluctant to respond to allegations of sexual abuse by priests in his diocese.

"The actions that Bishop Jenky has taken were based on information I never had available to me," Myers said of Jenky's removal of the priests. "If I had known, I would have acted like he acted."

But one of Myers' former top aides said that while he assisted Myers, the idea of establishing an independent commission to review sexual misconduct--such as Jenky recently set up--was never discussed.

'Commission never came up'

"A commission never came up. I don't know why," said Monsignor Eric Powell, now pastor of St. Mary Church in Kickapoo, Ill.

Powell said Myers liked to handle sensitive issues personally and quietly. He said he believed Myers always did the right thing to protect victims and potential victims when he was faced with allegations.

Still, Powell acknowledged that parishioners now demand a different approach. Myers used "the older model--to deal with it seriously, but deal with it quietly," Powell said. "This newer model is more satisfying to the people of God."

Some victims and their family members have come forward to say Myers only reacted when faced with media exposure. They include Theresa Koenigs of Cambridge, Ill., who was outraged a year ago to hear that Myers planned to reinstate a priest who acknowledged molesting her son in the 1980s.

Koenigs said the diocese initially didn't respond to her repeated phone calls concerning the priest, Francis Engels, who was removed from active service in 1993 after allegations were brought against him.

"So then I called one last time and I told them, 'You have somebody call me in 10 minutes or I'm going to a newspaper.' They called me within 5 minutes," she recalled.

Koenigs said she was told: "Well, we thought enough time was elapsed, that everybody had healed and it would be OK."

"I said, 'No, it's not OK. Not ever. Some of my family are just now starting to heal, and now you want to put him back on the altar?"

Myers acknowledged in the interview that he did move to allow Engels to return to limited ministry, but only in capacities in which he would not have direct contact with minors. When Koenigs contacted him to object, he relented and kept Engels inactive.

"I didn't realize they would be so upset," he said of the Koenigses' reaction. "I changed my mind on the spot the second I understood how upset they were."

Another alleged victim of Engels also said Myers responded to complaints only after he and his family went to the media.

"He was cordial but didn't do anything," said Michael Emery, a former priest who accused Engels and another priest of abusing him. "I would say we got stonewalled."

Emery said he and his family first spoke face-to-face with Myers in November 1992 but nothing was done about Engels until after the family got frustrated and told their story to the Peoria Journal-Star several months later.

"Given my family's experience ... I think it's crazy" for Myers to be named to the bishops' committee on sex abuse, said Emery, who left the priesthood in 1988 and later got married. "I don't think he's dealt with it in an insightful fashion."

Monsignor Steven Rohlfs, now the chancellor in charge of handling sex-abuse allegations under Jenky, defended Myers' handling of such allegations, saying, "I would hope that we would not act with lightning speed on accusations like this" and be "fair to the victims and fair to the accused."

After Jenky announced the removal of seven priests last week, Myers said through a spokesman that "he really has no knowledge of the individual allegations against these priests."

But Myers was informed of allegations against at least two of the priests as early as 1993. That year, a victim accused Rev. John Anderson of sexual misconduct about a decade earlier, and the family asked that he be moved to administrative duties, said Rohlfs.

"We had an allegation against him. And the victim did not want to go public, and he did not want Anderson removed from the priesthood. He just wanted him removed from any access to children," said Rohlfs.

None of the assignments Anderson subsequently took involved contact with children, he said, including local fundraising for church mission work and later executive director of King's House of Retreats.

Anderson, now 69, was sent away for treatment and continued in regular therapy when he returned to Peoria, according to Myers. The former Peoria bishop said that to his knowledge Anderson was not guilty of sexually abusing minors.

Behavior called 'inappropriate'

"He had not broken the law, as far as we know," Myers said, but he had engaged in behavior that was "inappropriate." Myers declined to elaborate, but acknowledged that the behavior was serious enough to warrant in-depth treatment.

The second priest, whom Myers knew about as of 1997, was Rev. Norm Goodman. The former pastor of Holy Family Church in Lincoln, Ill., Goodman consistently has denied accusations brought by more than a dozen victims. But Bishop Jenky stripped him of his Roman collar last week.

One of the victims who settled a lawsuit with the diocese over Goodman's alleged abuse was Lance Rainforth, whose family owns two candy and gift shops in Peoria and Lincoln.

After the Rainforths approached the diocese with their complaints, according to one Peoria priest who asked not to be identified, Myers seemed to suggest that the family would pay a price for pursuing its charges. "Before this is all over with," the priest recalled Myers telling him, "the diocese could end up owning two candy stores."

On Friday, Myers said he could not recall whether he said that.

"If I said anything, it would have been that 'If you keep pushing this, then people might stop coming to your business,"' he said, because people at the time were very supportive of Goodman.

Three years after becoming Peoria's bishop, Myers purchased files on priests from an archivist at the diocese's cathedral parish.

The archivist, Paul Geers, sold the files to the diocese in November 1993 for $6,000.

The "agreement of sale" document, written in halting sentence fragments, included a reference to "a very large file on priests ... many old photos of priests and histories. Death, Gay, Aids, married, those who left Diocese." The agreement also included a promise that Geers not keep any copies of the documents and that he not discuss their contents with anyone.

The day after the sale, Geers said, he got a call from Powell. "Bishop Myers would like to buy your silence," Geers recalled the priest telling him. "I said, 'My silence is not for sale.'"

At the time, Geers was a parishioner at St. Mary's Cathedral parish and an amateur archivist who came across the information while interviewing priests for research into diocesan history. "He tried to buy my silence to keep me quiet and now he's on this committee? Come on," Geers said of Myers. "I'd like to know what they're hiding."

But Powell and Myers challenged the recollections of Geers. Powell said that if secrecy had been his purpose, he would have been shrewder than to say so openly. "I dispute that," Powell said. "It's not a very clever thing to say."

Myers said the diocese did pay Geers, but did so chiefly because they wanted control of any confidential personnel files, rather than have them circulating among people who shouldn't have access to them.

"We did not know what he had," Myers said. In the end, Myers insisted, Geers' claim of having confidential priest files was false.

Looking back on Myers' Peoria tenure, even some victims' attorneys compare Myers favorably with other bishops in his handling of sexual misconduct cases.

"He sought to compensate the victims, which I think is commendable," said Frederic Nessler, a Springfield attorney who handled the Goodman cases. "Some dioceses defend the cases at any cost on any technical grounds they can muster. That was not the case that I experienced with Myers," said Nessler.

But Nessler said Myers failed to act as forthrightly as his successor. "He did not act to remove the priest as Bishop Jenky has," the attorney said. "I think you need to act transparently, and that's what Bishop Jenky has done. He's acting quickly to rid the diocese of these alleged pedophiles."

Some with whom Myers publicly clashed acknowledge his talents. "Bishop Myers is bright and charming. He's a wonderful managerial person, a gifted canon lawyer," said Marlynn Kelsch, a former scripture teacher at Notre Dame High School in Peoria who was let go in 1993 by one of Myers' proteges; she had defied the priest's order not to allow her students to debate the idea of ordaining women.

Others who know Myers through the painful experience of their loved ones' abuse look at the breadth of bishops who mishandled such cases for years. And they wonder if it's possible to find any prelates who haven't erred.

"The way I look at it as a Catholic and a person, they're not going to find a perfect bishop," said Ron Koenigs, Theresa's husband and a retired factory worker. But "what good is a church if you can't trust the priest?"

Surrounded by Walls

My father-in-law, Ed King, and I traveled to Haiti in mid-November. We went down to transport two young women in the Haitian Hearts program to the United States for heart surgery.

This was Ed’s second trip to Haiti. We stayed at a guest house in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Port-au-Prince has an estimated population of 3,000,000.

The first morning Ed looked at me, chuckled, and said, “We are surrounded by walls.”

Ed had surveyed the neighborhood that morning. And he was right. There were walls everywhere.

The top of the walls that surround private homes in Haiti have broken glass and razor wire embedded in cement. One would really have to want to get inside the walls to run the risk of going over top.

Prior to his retirement, Ed served as Dean of Men at Bradley University for many years. He is probably the most respected graduate in Bradley University history.

One midnight in 1969, Ed was awakened and emergently summoned to the Bradley Student Center. He quickly walked from his home which was just off campus and learned that students had taken over the Student Center.

African-American students were inside the Student Center and demonstrating against a university tuition increase. The Peoria Police were there and electricity had been cut to the building. Spotlights were shining and the police and their dogs were ready.

As the students called the police “pigs”, Ed calmly spoke with a microphone to the students inside.

After several hours of negotiations, the students left the building. Ed had confronted a disaster waiting to happen. No one was hurt.

Ed travels the country now and gives workshops on “constructive confrontation” which is about effective communication between people. The formidable walls in our neighborhood in Haiti’s capital startled him since he has spent most of his adult life trying to tear down walls.

Later that first morning in Haiti we piled into a pickup and traveled south and east of Port-au-Prince to an elite suburb called Petionville. We wanted to visit the site of La Promesse, the school that had collapsed suddenly one morning in early November.

This tragedy had riveted the world’s attention on Haiti and its courageous people.

The UN soldiers in Haiti dug through the rubble. International disaster experts were flown in. Pope Benedict sent his condolences. The world seemed to care about these Haitian students and their families.

When we arrived at the site, a small contingent of UN forces from Jordan was walking up the street from the collapsed three story building.

A big empty spot was apparent on the side of the street overlooking a steep ravine. About 30 Haitians were milling about on top of broken cement, rubble, and twisted rebar. Many were staring down into the ravine. Most people were quiet.

As we walked out onto the pancaked collapsed school, I thought I should not even be there. I wondered about crushed little bodies that may lie just beneath my dirty shoes.

One mother had lost 5 kids in the crush at the school named “ The Promise”.

Madame Telemak, a neighbor lady, standing in the debris with us, told me she heard a loud noise at 10 AM the morning the school fell. She ran over and witnessed the panic and screaming that enveloped the neighborhood. Family members and neighborhood people dug with their bare hands attempting to free anyone they could get to.

Another lady near us, wearing a black dress, sat down and put her face in her hand. She had lost no one in the disaster. She just wanted to be there.

This was Haiti’s version of 9-11, although Haiti seems to be one never ending 9-11.

A young man pointed to a small room made of cinderblock that was still standing somehow. He said it was the principal’s office. I peered in a small hole and could see some shadows of objects but I could not tell what they were.

Walls of adjacent homes that had been attached to La Promesse were hanging in various states of disarray and shambles. The walls had been partially ripped off when the school collapsed and again with the process of extrication of survivors and victims.

A tiny shattered one room house perched on the side of the hill was the home of a peanut vendor who was inside the school when it collapsed. He was killed.

After a short time, there wasn’t much more to see or talk about. Helpless doesn’t describe the situation. A few pictures and collective shaking of heads, and it was time to leave.

Ed and I ambled up onto to the street. A black sign had been hung over the street which read, “In memory of the students and professors of Petionville who lost their lives under the politics of the bourgeois and businessman.”

A well to do grocery store owner of Lebanese descent told me that morning that everyone wanted to blame the poor for the tragedy. But he blamed the government for lack of adequate construction safety codes.

I agree with my sagacious father-in-law. Walls everywhere, not just in Haiti, need to be removed so places like La Promesse don’t collapse and crush the future for all of us.

Ronald Accepted Today!!

 

Ronald is 16 years old and has been a Haitian Hearts patient for six years. Ronald is an orphan and lives in Port-au-Prince.

He was accepted by a medical center today for heart surgery which he desperately needs.

Now the paperwork.

Diocese Needs Higher Standards

I am a Catholic.

I have had 14 years of Catholic education and have been attending Mass for 55 years.

But I don’t trust our Catholic leaders in Peoria. I don’t think Bishop Jenky and Monsignor Rohlfs, and Patricia Gibson have behaved like moral Catholic leaders need to act. Especially when times get tough. Like now.

Somehow, and I don’t know how, the laity needs to hold them to higher standards. But the laity is afraid…jobs, health insurance, kids, etc. get in the way of holding the Bishop to a “higher standard”. And that is how the Diocese wants it.

Elaine Hopkins wrote this post today regarding SNAP and their news conference in Peoria.

Before my meetings with Bishop Jenky, Monsignor Rohlfs, and Patricia Gibson, I may have had a hard time believing SNAP and the Diocese’s reaction to SNAP victims. I probably would have sided with the Diocese.

Not any more.

After my personal experience with the Catholic Diocese of Peoria and the way they minimized the importance of Haitian Hearts children’s lives and obstructed the process, I feel the Diocese has been complicit in the abandonment of the very children that they should try and protect. They preach it on Sundays but don't practice it on weekdays.

Whenever I bury a Haitian Hearts patient, I think of our Diocesan leaders in their big offices and new Spalding Pastoral Care Center.

What a shame. What a lot of money. SNAP probably thinks so too.

Haitian Hearts, 2009